The Hindu Business Line : IOC to rope in foreign partners for exploration under NELP-VI

India's largest refiner IndianOil seems to getting ready to participate in NELP-VI with a new strategy. Under NELP-V, it rode piggyback on Oil India Ltd (OIL), unsuccessfully bidding for minority stakes ranging between 15 and 25 per cent for all kinds of oil and gas exploration blocks, ranging from deep-waters to onshore.

In NELP-VI, IOC will eye majority stake in only shallow water and on-land blocks. While its association with OIL will continue, the company is gearing up to rope in new foreign partners to impart the necessary technical as well as financial strength to the consortium.

The company had bid for six blocks including one in Krishna-Godavari deepwater, one shallow-water block in Cambay basin and four on-land blocks in Assam-Arakan basin, Rajasthan and Cambay. Excluding one one-shore block (CB-ONN-2003/2) where IOC (75 per cent) partnered with Exspan Exploration of Indonesia (25 per cent), the company was a minority partner of consortium with OIL also joined by GAIL, Zakros, Suntera and HPCL. None of the bids, however, were successful.

"We lack domain knowledge on deepwater exploration. Accordingly, unlike in the past we will not bid for such blocks in the ensuing round. Also, we will no longer join the bidding process simply as a minority consortium partner. Our plan is to be a majority stakeholder," a company official said, adding that they were expecting the current round to be the most competitive among all NELP rounds so far.

While the consortium partners "are yet to be finalised", the official said, "IOC will rope in new foreign partners with adequate expertise in exploration for NELP-VI". He, however, did not clarify whether the previous foreign consortium partners (Zakros and Suntera) would also join the company's bids during the forthcoming round.

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